Tag: recipes

My kaBOBAhan mistake: How to cook white tapioca (BOT BANG) pearls?

I grew up buying cooked boba or tapioca pearls in the market so this was my first time cooking it and I thought I was smart enough since I cooked brown tapioca pearls before perfectly!

Wait, let me defend myself a bit. There was no instruction on the packaging! But my inner self was screaming — you should have searched it! Internet is free!

Boba is a Tagalog term for stupid girls which I brought to life when I did not cook the white tapioca pearls correctly. LOL.

Here’s the thing. The white vs the brown tapioca shares similar and different things when cooking them. Similar in terms of putting them in boiling water but different on the duration that you will have to simmer them.

Below was the disaster I made which was dissolved white tapioca pearls:

Please DO NOT put yet the tapioca pearls unless the water is BOILING!!!

LET THE WATER BOIL FIRST!!!

Then, put your pearly white raw tapioca.

Reduce the heat and let it slowly boil for 30 minutes.

Unlike the brown boba, with white tapioca pearls you should let the pearls sit in the water until it cools.

You should see mostly translucent pearls and few opaque like the photo below. If you see a lot of opaque, you need to BOIL the WATER again and cook the half cooked pearls for 10-15 minutes and let it sit in the water until it cools for 10-15 minutes.

After this time, you should see that most of the pearls are translucent.

Wash them to remove extra slimey coating of the pearls.

Then you can cook them in sugar syrup if you want them sweet!

Easy to make Pinoy dessert – maja blanca (coconut pudding)

After Christmas, we are going to prepare for the New Year’s dinner. In the Philippines, we call it media noche. Now that I live outside my home country, I usually want to bring something Filipino in gatherings like Christmas or New Year’s eve dinner. However, I often struggle what to make that is easy to make but will still tastes good and ingredients are available in the nearest grocery. And it dawned me – why not make maja blanca.

Maja blanca is like pudding but you do not need to bake it! It is a Filipino dessert or snack mainly made of coconut milk. Below it the ingredients and how to make it:

Ingredients:

400-ml coconut milk

350-ml evaporated milk

400-ml condensed milk

1/2-tsp salt

1/2-cup granulated white sugar

1 1/2-cup corn starch

1 1/2-cup water

1-cup whole kernel corn

Preparation time: 25-30 minutes

Procedure:

1. Combine coconut milk, evaporated milk, and condensed milk in a pot. Put the pot in a stove under medium heat. Mix it well until there is no curds.

2. Add the sugar and salt in the mixture and mix.

3. Dissolve well the corn starch in the water. Make sure there is no corn starch curds in the water and the mixture is homogenous. Add this to the simmering pot of milk mixture.

4. Continuously mix until it begins thickening and then add the corn. Make sure to add the corn when the mixture is not very thin but before it gets very thick.

5. Mix very well until all the corn kernels are evenly distributed and the mixture gets thick.

6. To make it very Pinoy, put it in a bilao. But, if bilao is not available, the baking pan will work fine.

7. Cool and serve with cheese (optional)